Locked Out
by tales-of-bohemia
Summary: AU future!fic after the first book. Peter goes to the nursery to listen to Wendy tell stories. But he's not there to see her, not really. Disclaimed.


Peter was on his way to the Darling house. He had been visiting there more and more often as of late. He was going to listen to the story Molly's daughter, Wendy, would tell her brothers that night. He used to go to listen to Molly's stories – most often of a boy who lived on an island with a fairy, had the ability to fly, and never grew older – back when Wendy was a baby. But now Wendy was older, and she was the storyteller.

As he flew across the English sky, Peter thought about his old visits with Molly. When he had refused to leave the island and go to live with her and her Starcatcher family, after saving the starstuff and all of their lives, it had caused a riff between them, one they had never managed to fix. It became apparent that he had made the right choice in staying after his first visit to her home.

Peter has begun to lose track of time on Neverland; after all, he never ran out of it. So when he had visited her, it had surprised him that she was so much older since the last time he had seen her. It had been a happy reunion at first, but the longer they talked, the more awkward it had grown. She seemed so… old now, so mature. He couldn't imagine living with her, being so young while she was so grown up.

The next time he had visited her, she was an adult, and her last name had changed from Aster to Darling. Peter thought George Darling could have been a nice enough man, if he hadn't been married to Molly. Except, she wasn't Molly anymore. She refused to be called anything other than Mary, her given name, now. Peter didn't like this; it seemed so formal, when they had once been so close.

Peter's next visit had brought even more of a shock. Molly and George had converted the room Peter had always visited into a nursery. In the cradle in the center of the room, was a baby girl. "Wendy," Molly had said her name was. The girl had been sleeping when Peter had first arrived, but as he had drawn closer to get a better look at her, she had awoken. Her eyes were a big bright green, the exact shape and color of Molly's. Peter knew then as he had looked at the baby that they would be great friends one day.

Peter was almost at the house; he could see the light in the nursery window where Wendy and her brothers slept. He did his usual trick, flying around the house, landing on the chimney, and then hopping down to the side of the windowsill, just out of sight of the nursery. He could hear Wendy enthusiastically telling a story of a poor girl, treated as a servant by her stepmother. Tinker Bell, the bird Mr. Aster had given him while on Neverland that had turned into a fairy, arrived just behind him. As Mr. Aster had promised, Tink was always on the lookout for him. She was though, as expected, a very mischievous, jealous fairy. Therefore when he had said that he wanted to go listen to Wendy's stories, she had all but spat in his face.

He didn't understand her annoyance towards Wendy; they didn't even know each other. He himself didn't even know Wendy, except, at times, he felt like he did. He noticed the spark in her eyes when she started to recount a story; it reminded him of the one Molly used to get when they formed a plan to save the starstuff from Black Stache and his pirates on Neverland. She was a leader too; when she played out a story she had told with her brothers, she was always in charge, like when Molly had instructed everyone when they had planned to capture the starstuff from Mr. Slank and Little Richard. And then of course there were her eyes, her bright green, big round eyes. They were so expressive just like Molly's had been. He could always tell what Mol- Wendy was thinking.

Peter had been sneaking closer to the open window, trying to get a better look at Wendy's animated display of the story. Molly was sitting with Wendy's brothers on the beds opposite the window, laughing and gasping at all the right times. With Wendy's back to him, Peter was confident he wouldn't be seen in the excitement. At one point, Wendy began to impersonate what Peter took to be a fairy of some sort, and he started laughing at the ridiculousness of it, along with Wendy's audience.

Suddenly, Molly's head snapped up, looking straight out the window. For the shortest second, their eyes met. Then Peter whipped around, about to fly away, but found he was stuck. He looked down and realized that his shadow had somehow been caught under a shingle on the roof. He dove out of sight, trying to release his foot on the way but couldn't. He felt a ripping sensation, and then the bottoms of his feet were stinging.

He was below the windowsill now and he peeked up trying to see if anyone was at the window. Sure enough, Molly stood in the window looking up, trying to find him.

"Peter," she called softly. He couldn't help but notice the sad tone in her voice. "You didn't have to leave," she whispered. She bent down suddenly, seeing something. She picked up a long floppy black mass. It was too fluid to be considered solid, but too solid to be considered a liquid.

_My shadow_, thought Peter, again noticing the stinging in his feet.

Molly looked up again. "I miss you, Peter," she said softly to the night sky. "Come back and visit me soon."

Peter was just about to make himself known, when she pulled back from the window, closed, and locked it. _Barred_, he thought. _I'm barred from the nursery. From Wendy and her stories. From _Molly.

He floated there, just below the window. It was only when he felt a tugging on his ear that he remembered Tinker Bell was still there. She was giving him that look, the one that said they should go. "All right," he whispered, annoyed. He gave one last look to the window before flying off, following Tink.

As he was flying back to the island, he only had one thought: _I'll come back soon, Molly. I'll come back to get my shadow. I'll come back to see you._


End file.
